When "What Everyone Knows" Is Wrong

Texts:  Psalm 138; Colossians 6:6-23

EVER SINCE WE'RE LITTLE, WE LEARN that certain things are true about life in this world.  Things like, "No pain, no gain," "There's no free lunch," and "You get what you pay for."   We learn that if we want to get ahead there are powers and authorities we have to keep happy.  It might be your parents, your teachers, your boss-- or if we're superstitious, maybe it's Fate or karma or the powers of nature.  The general rule is that you have to give to get, and that's just the way things are.  It's what everyone knows.

And these basic principles don't just apply to our livelihoods and lifestyles.  As children of this fallen world we're born with the conviction that it works the same way in the spiritual realm.  It's what everyone just knows.  Good people go to heaven.   Being good means doing good deeds.  Good deeds and the right kind of worship will earn us the favor of God, however we conceive him, her, or it to be.  And if we're good and do good deeds and worship our god or gods the right way, he, she, or it simply has to reward us with prosperity on earth and heaven, paradise, nirvana, the Elysian Fields, whatever we're looking forward to in the life to come.

It's ingrained into us that that's how things are.  That if we're going to be full and fulfilled we have to keep the powers that be happy and do, do, do.  It even distresses us to think otherwise.

But along comes Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and He says, "Relax.  Forget all that do, do, do.  Trust in who I am.  Rest in what I have done.  Stop listening to what "everyone knows" and live by My wisdom instead."

This message of our Lord Jesus Christ is the message St. Paul was bringing to the Christians in the church at Colossae nearly two thousand years ago, and it's the same message the Holy Spirit is bringing to us in His Word today.  It's a radical message, a message that contradicts everything the world teaches us and everything our gut tells us is true.  But when it comes to teaching and truth, it's always best for us to obey the voice of the Lord who is Wisdom and Truth, and as new creatures in Him we need to leave the conventional wisdom of this fallen world behind.

St. Paul begins our passage from chapter 2 of his letter to the Colossians with these words, "So then, just as you have received Jesus Christ as Lord . . . " Everything hinges on this.  If we don't know what kind of Lord Jesus Christ is, and how we have received Him, we'll never get loose from "what everyone knows" and walk in the freedom of Almighty God.  What kind of Lord is Christ Jesus?  He's the ultimate, mighty, and supreme Lord Paul wrote about in Chapter 1, in whom all God's fullness dwells, as we heard in the Call to Worship.  And how is He to be received as Lord?  Verses 1:22-23 says,

"But now he [that is, God] has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel."

God willing, you received Christ as Lord not by doing anything, not even by repeating the formula of a prayer as if that were a kind of charm to make God save you.  No, you were reconciled to God by Jesus' death on the cross, and His blood was applied to you by God's doing alone. All you had to do was put your faith in-- that is, trust-- in the good news concerning what God had already done.  And as we know from elsewhere in the Scripture, even our ability to believe the gospel is a gift and work of God, and not something we have to or can work up on our own.

So if this is the case with you, if this truly is the Christ you received and how you received Him, then, you Christian of Colossae, you Christian of P----, continue, Paul urges in 2:6, to live, walk, conduct your life in Him.  As you live your life, may your roots of faith go down in Christ deeper than the most stubborn dandelion.  Let your knowledge of Him be built up higher than the tallest skyscraper.  Make sure that you are continually strengthened in the faith you have been taught, so you come to grasp more and more who Jesus is and the wonder of what He did to redeem you from sin and death, so you may overflow with thankfulness to your Savior and Lord.

Oh, yes, faith in Jesus is practical.  We aren't saved by what we do, regardless of what conventional wisdom says.  But neither can the word of Jesus that saved us just be a nice story that lives up in our heads and we forget about it most of the time.  We need by the grace of the Holy Spirit to be walking around continually in the wonderful new reality of God's work for us in Jesus Christ.

Why do we need this reminder?  Because, Paul goes on in verse 7, it's so easy for us to be taken
"captive again through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends upon human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ."

This phrase "basic principles of this world" carries several layers of meaning in the Greek, and you'll see it rendered various ways.  "The rudiments of this world" (KJV); "the elemental spirits of the universe" (RSV); "the elementary principles of the world" (NASV), to quote a few.  It mingles the ideas of rules to be followed, of facts about "the way things are," and of spirits or entities--"gods" as Psalm 138 puts it-- that have to be kowtowed to and placated.  The Holy Spirit wanted all these meanings to be included, so we His people will understand that nothing is to take the place of Jesus Christ as we live and serve Him in this world.

The Lord our God created the world and set its basic elements in order, but we are not to be subject to our chemical natures.  He created the angels and all principalities and powers, but we are not to fear them or worship them-- especially when they rebel against God and claim to be greater than or more relevant than He.  God Almighty established the basic rules of right and wrong and wrote them on the hearts of every human being, and He gave His people Israel the written Law to show them how to live in His presence.  But even the holy Law given to Moses is not the way to fullness and satisfaction in this world or the next.

All these things throw us back on ourselves for hope and peace, but there is no hope or peace there.  No, only in Jesus Christ does "all the fullness of the Deity live in bodily form,"  and only in Christ is fullness given to us.

By warning us against the "basic principles of this world" Paul draws an uncrossable line between both pagan practices and Jewish legalism on the one side, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ on the other.  The church in Colossae would have faced pressures from both camps.

There would have been Judaizers telling them that to be real Christians they had to be circumcised and become Jews.  As you know, circumcision was a private sign of cutting oneself off from pagan gods and pagan practices and covenanting to worship the Lord alone.  But it bound a man-- and his affiliated household-- to obey all the Law and find his life and hope in it.  But now Christ has come, and He has fulfilled the Law for us.  Our circumcision is now spiritual, not physical, as Christ cuts off from us our old nature that could never please God.  Baptism is the sign given to us who have received fullness in Christ.  It is a public sign that our old sinfulness, our old allegiance to doing things our way has been buried in His tomb.  And our new selves have been raised with Him through faith in the power of God.

All God's power, all God's doing in Christ!  For "when you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ."  Dead equals helpless!  This term "the written code" in verse 14 literally means "handwriting" and it carries the sense of a legal indictment against us.  And isn't that what the Law ended up to be?  The decrees and ordinances that expressed God's holiness became a writ that put us on trial and condemned us to death!  But Jesus Christ took our sentence under the Law and made it His own!  And in the process, He also dealt with the forces, the powers and authorities that had us locked up in fear.

We aren't in the habit of worshipping gods and goddesses identified with forces of nature.  At least, I hope we aren't.  But we can still be bound up in superstition.  We can still feel a compulsion to check our horoscope before deciding anything important.  We can still be pulled towards believing some prophet who claims to have a source of special spiritual knowledge separate from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and is revelation in His word.  But by the best divine irony in history, Jesus Christ as He hung on the cross dying for our sins made a public spectacle of all of that.  Even as He was mocked and ridiculed He turned the tables and showed how foolish and powerless all those so-called gods really were.

You as a man or woman redeemed by Jesus Christ are no longer held captive by the basis principles of this world!  You have been freed from the clutches of the elemental spirits of this universe!  Therefore, let your mind be free of false guilt and needless fear.  The Colossians were under pressure to observe the Jewish festivals and the seventh-day Sabbath.  No, says Paul!  Those things were only shadows and pointers to Christ who was to come.  Christ is the reality, hold on to Him!  Some people even today will claim to have special visions and revelations, and try to make you feel you're second rate as a Christian because you just go to church and hear the preaching and receive the sacraments and do "unglamourous" things like that.  Others will go on and on about their guardian angels, as if it were wrong to trust directly in God.  Ignore them all.   You're running a race greater than any Olympics; don't let anyone get you off track and disqualify you for the prize.  People like that, Paul says, are proving they have forgotten the identity of the Lord who has saved them.  Jesus is our only Head; we, His body the Church, keep growing only as we stay connected to Him.

You have died with Christ to the basic principles of this world.  So don't submit to living as if they still governed you!  Don't go thinking that God is going to save you or keep you saved by certain things you do and enjoy or don't do and enjoy.  Paul illustrates the problem in terms of the Jewish kosher laws, but all religions set up foods and practices that are artificially taboo, even if they are good in themselves.  For us in our day, it might be rules about alcoholic beverages or watching movies or what car we drive or whether we're ecologically sensitive enough.  All these things belong to this world, which is passing away.  They can't save us, and abstaining from them can't even make us moral.

We as Christians live in this world, but our reality is in Christ.  We feel pressure to conform to the rules of this world, but they have all been subverted and turned on their heads by Christ.  "No pain, no gain"?  Christ's pain is our gain.  "There's no free lunch"?  Christ Himself is our free lunch, and we feed on Him by faith forever.  "You get what you pay for"?  We get what Jesus has paid for, eternal life, and we no longer need to fear the death we deserved.  We no longer need to fear Fate or those nameless forces that seemed to be out to get us, for we have died in Christ to them all and they no longer have any power over us.

Brothers and sisters, everyone wants to feel satisfied, to be fulfilled, to experience fullness in their lives.  Everybody knows how to get that-- that is, they think they do.  But in this case, what everybody knows is wrong.  No, bad people don't go to heaven, but our God has found a way to make bad people good, through no effort of their own.  For in Christ lives all the fullness of Almighty God in bodily form, and by His cross His fullness, power, triumph, and joy are ours.  Live each moment of each day rooted and built up in Him, keep on being strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and may your thankfulness overflow towards God for doing for us what we could never do for ourselves.  Amen.

The More Certain Word

Texts:  2 Peter 1:16-21; Luke 9:28-36

WHICH IS BETTER: TO KNOW JESUS, OR to know about Him?  Is it more important to learn from the Bible learn who Jesus is and what He has done, or should we focus on knowing Jesus personally in our hearts?

Surveys have been taken of evangelical Christians, and the great majority say the essential thing is to feel Jesus living in your heart.  The Bible is important in telling us how to live, the majority responded, but it's not that crucial in helping us experience the Jesus we should be living for.  "Heart knowledge" trumps "head knowledge" every time, and "Word" constantly takes a back seat to "Spirit."

If this is true, if all these Christian brothers and sisters are right about this, we can expect that the Apostle Peter would be right at the forefront leading those who would say experience is better than knowledge.

For who had an experience of Jesus Christ like the Apostle Peter?  Three years walking with the Savior, starting with seeing Him baptised in the Jordan.  Imagine, witnessing that miraculous catch of fish in the Sea of Galilee!   Being one of Jesus' inner circle along with James and John!  Getting out of the boat at Jesus' invitation and for a few steps actually walking on water!  Being the first to seriously confess Jesus as the Son of God!  Even the horrible experience of denying Jesus three times surely affected Peter in a deeply-felt way, especially when Christ later forgave and restored him.  And then Peter saw Jesus after He was raised from the dead, and witnessed His wondrous ascension into heaven.  And perhaps most impressive of all, Peter the ex-fisherman, alone among the disciples along with James and John, beheld the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in divine glory and majesty on the mount of Transfiguration.

Think of it!  Peter had the ultimate experience of Christ a man could have on this earth.  He saw and spoke with Jesus shining forth bodily as the eternal Son of God!  Imagine how he and the other two disciples
must have felt!  What cold historical facts, what writing, what words could ever compete with that?

But the amazing thing is, in his second letter to the churches, Peter does not base everything in the Christian life on his experience, even his experience of Jesus' transfiguration.  He doesn't urge God's people (including you and me) to strive to get a mountaintop experience of Jesus like his.  Instead, he cites his mountaintop experience as evidence of the power and authority of the Word of God that witnesses to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  He wants all who read this letter to know and understand who Jesus is, not because we have some spiritual experience or feeling about Him, but because we have received and believed reliable testimony to Christ through the prophets and apostles.

To see this more clearly we need to go back to the start of Peter's letter.  So if you have your Bible open look at verse 2.  Peter writes: "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord."  Grace and peace come through knowledge of Christ.  This word in the Greek, to quote Bible commentator Norman Hillyer, "denotes exact and full knowledge of God and his ways, which follows as a consequence of conversion to Christ."  In the next verse the apostle writes that we have everything we need for life and godliness, again through our knowledge of God (same Greek word) who called us.  He has given us his very great and precious promises (verse 4), promises given to us in His holy Word, including those spoken through the prophets concerning the coming Messiah.  In verses 5-7 Peter urges us on to the practice of many active Christian virtues.  Why?  Because (verse 8), these qualities will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge (there's that word again!) of Christ.  This knowledge of Christ is the good news of the gospel, telling us what Jesus did for us on the cross and how He has saved us by His own precious blood.  No experience of ours could ever tell us that!  It takes the word of Scripture ministered by the Holy Spirit to get this good news into our minds and into our hearts, and there it bears its fruit.

This knowledge of Christ and His finished work is so important that Peter says (verse 12) that he's going to keep on reminding us of it.  Even we who have heard and believed the gospel need to have our memories refreshed about these things.  It is so important that Peter is going to argue from his apostolic experience to prove to us that the Word he speaks is trustworthy.  So as we read in our epistle selection,  "We [apostles] did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus." 

Now, right here we see a number of things.  By bringing up "cleverly invented stories" Peter introduces the fact that there were those claiming to be God's prophets who were spreading that very thing.  Later in chapter 2 he will warn us against them and their corrupting influence.  The testimony of Peter and the other apostles isn't like that.  They are giving the church the true word about Jesus Christ, the facts about Him and His ministry on earth.  In our passage we also see that the truth the Apostle is emphasizing goes beyond salvation through the cross and to the time when Jesus will come again in glory.  How can we believe Peter's word about this?  He saw a preview of it.  He, James, and John were eyewitnesses of Jesus' majesty on the sacred mountain.  They saw Him receive honor and glory from God the Father.  They heard the voice from the Majesty Glory-- that is, from God Himself-- declaring "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."  If Peter tells us that Jesus Christ is coming again in power and great glory, we should believe it.

Having heard Peter recount what he heard and saw of the glory of Jesus, it would be good for us to turn to the gospel of St. Luke and read what the Holy Spirit has recorded for us there.

We see that Jesus took the three disciples and went up onto a mountain.  We're not told which of the mountains of Israel it was, and that's a good thing.  Otherwise we'd all be trooping up it trying to get the same experience for ourselves, and totally missing the point of what God revealed there.  We are told He went there to pray; that is, He entered into intense communication and fellowship with God the Father.  Jesus had gone up into the hills to pray before, but on this occasion "the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning."  And then, "two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus."  Why Moses and Elijah?  Why not David and Abraham?  Because together Moses and Elijah represented the Law and the Prophets.  In their glorified persons they stood for all the promises and predictions God had sent to His people Israel throughout the Old Testament.  They represented the Word of God that had always pointed towards the Messiah who was to come.  And now that Messiah, that Christ was here, and the two blessed Old Testament saints were speaking about His departure.

Departure?  What does it mean, "His departure"?

It might help to know that the word in the Greek is "exodus," which for Greek-speaking Jews and God-fearers would raise the echo of the exodus from Egypt.  It would remind them-- and should remind us-- of the great day when God led His people out of slavery under the leadership of Moses.  And now Jesus the Son of God was about to lead His people out of a greater slavery, the slavery to sin.  The befuddled disciples didn't understand it then, but soon they would know that Jesus would accomplish that through His sacrifice on the cross.  Jesus was about to depart in a particular way.  By His death He would perform the divine act of liberation that the law and the prophets had predicted.  Everything that had been written in the Scriptures led up to that crucial event.

We read in Luke what Peter said on the occasion, and it's significant that he doesn't mention it in his letter.  I don't think it was because he was embarrassed to.  Rather, how Peter felt about the Transfiguration wasn't important.  What was important was the fact of Christ's glory and the revelation of who He was.

Luke tells us something more that was said by the voice from the Majestic Glory.  The voice of God also said about Jesus, "Listen to Him!"  Listen to His word!  Listen to what He tells you about your need for His atoning death!  Listen when He tells you He is coming again to judge the living and the dead!  Moses and Elijah represented the Word of God, but Jesus Christ was and is the living Word of God, standing there transfigured before the terrified disciples.  The Law and the prophets all give witness to Jesus.  Listen to Him!

Peter personally heard the voice of God testifying to Jesus' divine Sonship when they were with Him on the mountain.  But should we believe Jesus is the Son of God only because of Peter's experience?  Well, in a way, yes, because he was one of Christ's holy apostles and the Spirit spoke the word of God through him.  But Peter adds this as well: "And we have the word of the prophets made more certain."  That is, "We have more than my apostolic experience; we have the fact that Jesus fulfilled all the prophets spoke about Him."  The Greek in this phrase literally means, "we can take a most firm hold on the prophetic word."  You and I can rely on what the prophets said in the Old Testament and take our stand on it, because in Jesus Christ it all came true.  We should and must pay attention to what the Scriptures say to us, because they are our light in this dark world and will help us see our way "until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts"-- that is, until Jesus comes again.  We can rely on what God's New Testament prophets, the apostles and evangelists have written by the power of the Spirit, because they have written by the power of the Holy Spirit.  For Old Testament or New, prophecy-- by which is meant the entire Word of Scripture-- never was a matter of human beings making up things out of their own heads.  No, true prophecy, the authentic Word of God that points to Jesus Christ and Him crucified and risen, is from God and God alone.  It is to be believed and trusted and by it we should direct our lives, until the day of Jesus Christ.

The Word is essential; our feelings aren't enough.  Our personal experience of Christ won't save us and won't preserve us-- unless it's based on a true knowledge of Jesus Christ and what He actually said and did, as recorded in the Scriptures.  This world is very dark, squalid, and dismal, and if we rely on our emotions to assure us that we are saved, we will stumble and fall.  If we trust our feelings to guide us in what we should do, we are in grave danger of going astray.   But we have the truth of Christ recorded for us in God's written Word, and it shines as a light to all who have been called by God's own glory and greatness.

Let us thank God for those times when we feel especially happy or joyful in Him.  Let us praise Him for seasons of blessed peace and comfort.  But do not lose heart when trouble and distress and darkness come.  We have the prophetic word made most certain, for it testifies to Jesus Christ and what He has done.  He did it for you, to give you hope and everything you need for life and godliness through knowledge of Him.  He is the Word of God Incarnate, the Word made flesh.  He is the bright morning star, the same Jesus who was transfigured on the mountain, the Son of Man who died on the cross and rose for you in glory.  This same Jesus has promised to return and take you to live with Him in blessedness forever and by the testimony of the apostles and prophets we know His promises are good.  By the power of the Holy Spirit may His glorious word be established in your heart and may you grow in grace and knowledge of Him until He comes again.  Amen.

Where Weakness Wins

Text:  1 Corinthians 1:18 - 2:5

WELL, TONIGHT'S THE SUPER BOWL, AND it's too bad the Steelers aren't in it.  They just weren't strong enough or smart enough or healthy enough to make it to New Orleans.  It's a real disappointment, but that's the way it works in this world.  To get to the big game you have to be smart and fast and accomplished, and that doesn't go just for football, but for all areas of life.  To really succeed, it takes smarts-- or, shall we say, wisdom-- and it takes strength.  Weaklings and fools need not apply

But in our Scripture reading for today, we have the Apostle Paul extolling the virtues of weakness and foolishness.  What's going on?  Have we been wrong all along about how the world runs?  Does he want us to see that in this life it's the weak fools who really win?

Not at all.   But St. Paul isn't talking about the game of this earthly life.  He's talking about a game that's much, much, bigger than that.

When it comes to understanding the Scriptures, the first rule is "Context, context, context".  That means first of all how the verse or passage works in the book its in and in the Bible as a whole.  Then it means understanding the historical and cultural context of the passage, what it would have meant to its first readers.  After that, we can begin to apply God's eternal Word to ourselves.

So even though you have the Scripture readings projected up on the screen, I hope you won't stop opening the Bible in the pew or bringing your own Bible to church and having it open during the sermon.  It will help you understand the context of what's being preached.

So what's the context of our reading from 1 Corinthians?  First and foremost, its context is the entire Bible, and entire Bible is the record of how God the Father brought salvation to a lost world through His Son Jesus Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies that salvation to the ones He has chosen.  As Jesus taught the disciples on the road to Emmaus, all of Scripture is about Him.  The first letter to the Corinthians is in the New Testament, which deals with how God brought the good news of Christ's salvation to the world and how His church worked through what that would mean in their lives.  In this letter the Apostle Paul responds to some misunderstandings that had come up in the church at Corinth, so they could live before God and with each other in a way that glorified the Lord who had saved them.  And the immediate context for what we read today starts at verse 10 of chapter 1 and goes all the way to the end of Chapter 4.  It has to do with wisdom and foolishness, weakness and strength, and being united in Christ instead of divided like those in this fallen world.

So if you do have your Bibles with you, I ask you to look over at verses 11 and 12 of chapter 1.  There Paul writes,

My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.  What I mean is this:  One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas [that is, Peter]"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Over in chapter 3, verse 5, the Apostle writes,

What, after all, is Apollos?  And what is Paul?  Only servants, though whom you were called to believe-- as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

All right, what does this have to do with strength and weakness?  Just this: In the 1st century Grecian world, the teams (you might call them) that were the most looked up to and admired were not always the wrestlers and runners and chariot racers.  They were the schools of the philosophers.  The philosophers were the wise ones who could teach enlightenment and help you gain the ideal life in this world and in the next.  Now, these schools weren't like a college classroom with a professor up front lecturing.  Rather, think of a group of men (and a woman or two) gathered in a shady colonnade in the market place discussing and debating the latest ideas on wisdom and the ideal life.  The different schools of philosophy didn't agree on this, and so of course there were divisions between them.  Which one was the wisest?  Which one made the strongest, most noble case?  It was important to the Greeks.    Even the lower classes looked up with envy and admiration to the philosophers.

Before they were saved, the Corinthians might have said, "I admire the Stoics"; or, "I favor the Epicureans"; or "I follow Pythagoras."  But now, listen to them: "I follow Paul!" and "I follow Apollos!"  They were treating the Good News of Jesus Christ like just another worldly philosophy and seeing the apostles as leaders of different, opposing schools.  They were quarrelling about who was the wisest, the strongest, the best!

We don't have that exact problem in our day.  But sadly, we do have Christian leaders who will take their stand on some secondary point of doctrine, like social justice or worship styles or women in ministry, and insinuate that those who don't feel the way they do on it probably aren't saved.  We have everyday ordinary people-- maybe ourselves, God help us!-- breaking up into factions of one, each picking and choosing what bits of Scripture we'll emphasize and worshipping a Jesus of our own making.  As we can tell from verse 17, this partisan spirit threatens to empty the cross of Christ of its power.

Why is that?  Because, as we read in 1:18, "[T]he message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Again, is Paul getting ready to tell us that weakness and foolishness is the real, true way to triumph in this earthly life?  Not at all!  Rather, he's telling us that what God has done for us in Christ has nothing to do with the world or its strength or wisdom at all!  He quotes from Isaiah 29:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; 
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

The wise ones of the Jews said the way to salvation-- that is, the way to power and glory with God-- was by making an effort and perfectly keeping the Law of Moses.  The wise Gentiles, especially the Greeks,  said it was through philosophy and enlightenment.  But God confounds them all with the fact of the cross, with a stripped and beaten Man hanging in agony on a shameful instrument of execution.  How foolish that seems to the unbelieving world?  Who could ever believe that one Man's death as a low, despised criminal could be the one and only way to divine fulfillment, happiness, and peace?  Through its wisdom the world could never know it.  If we thought about it ourselves for a thousand years we could never imagine it.  Even today, we have people in the church, in our denomination, who say the Cross of Christ is foolishness and we should forget all about it if we want to bring in the kingdom of God.  If you read news articles online or watch YouTube videos, you'll see how many people make fun of the idea that salvation from sin comes only through Christ and Him crucified.  The idea that we need to be saved in the first place makes them laugh even more.  Not only is the cross not obvious, it goes against everything the world knows is true.

But, as Paul says in 1:25, "[T]he foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength."  By the weakness and foolishness of the preaching of the gospel of Christ dead and risen again for our sins, God the Holy Spirit brings into our lives eternal wisdom and never-ending strength that we could never have imagined before He came and transforms our hearts and minds.

But how can we know this is true? Well, Paul says to the Corinthians, look what has happened to you:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are . . .

Does Paul want them to start feeling proud of their lowliness?  Does he want them to compete for the title of Most Humble the way they've been competing over whose party is the greatest?  Certainly not!  Besides, the slaves and laborers of the Corinthian church knew there was nothing grand or glorious about their lot in life.  It was a dead-end, miserable existence.  Rather, if they should ever doubt the greatness of the cross, he wants them to think like this: "Hey, you know, that's right.  I'm only a slave.  I could never go near those groups of philosophers in the marketplace, except maybe to wash their feet.  I could never learn the path to enlightenment.  But here I am and I know the truth of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe!  To me, a mere slave, the eternal Creator has given the gift of speaking in tongues!  My fellow-slaves and I can prophesy in His name!  We can heal people and cast out demons!  We can do all these amazing things the greatest philosophers never dreamed of doing, and it's all because of what Jesus Christ did for me when He died on that cross over outside Jerusalem."  If God can transform our lives like that by the cross, don't you think He could cause the cross to become the means of transformation in the first place?  Or to put it the other way around, since God was able by the out-of-this-world foolishness of the cross to raise up His church in power and wisdom, can't we see how able He is to transform and glorify you and me?

Why did God do it this way?  Why go so opposite to what the world desires and expects?  The answer is in verse 29.  God wants to make sure that no one on earth can boast before Him.  He wants to make sure that none of us can say, "Here I am, Lord, standing in blessedness before Your throne,  because I made the effort and earned it!" or "Sure, that was all my idea, how to get myself saved."  No, Christ and Christ crucified alone is our wisdom from God, our righteousness, our holiness, and our redemption.  If we're going to talk big about anyone's greatness, let us magnify the amazing greatness of the Lord.

It was to forestall any human boasting that, when Paul came to preach the gospel in Corinth, he made every effort not to sound like one of their hero philosophers.  He didn't claim to have special, hidden, higher wisdom and he didn't use the eloquent rhetorical devices the great lecturers would use.  Paul knew the Corinthians' yen for human strength and wisdom, and he wanted to distinguish the gospel from all that, so the transforming power would be that of the Holy Spirit alone.  So, he says, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified . . . so that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom, but on God's power."

"I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."  That is the message of the gospel.  That is the message of all the Scriptures.  Of course there are other things we need to know about God's dealing with us.  We need to know about God's righteousness and our sin.  We need to understand our need for a Savior.  We need to learn how to live our lives in thankful service to the Lord who has saved us.  We need to know about His return and how His righteousness and justice will prevail over all creation.  But the central thing is and must remain the cross, that foolish, weak, and shameful thing Jesus Christ submitted to one day outside Jerusalem.

Before all else, we need to realize how through it He has given us God's nobility, wisdom, and strength.   Whatever you do, especially whatever you as a church, be it the most routine meeting or fellowship dinner, do not ignore the cross, or depart from it, or forget its power.  For if you do, you'll wander blind in your human weakness and you're bound to lose.  If the preaching you hear from this pulpit gives you the idea that the Christian life is something you live by your own wisdom or strength of character, it is leading you to failure.  If any so-called Christian author would lead you away from the cross by reducing Christ's death to a mere good example, reject his or her false wisdom and return to the wisdom of God recorded in Holy Scripture.  Keep your eyes focussed on Him who in foolishness and weakness died for you.  He is Christ, for you the wisdom of God and the power of God.  And when it comes to a contest between the strength of man and the weakness of God, the weakness of God always wins.

What Kind of King, What Kind of Kingdom?

Texts: Psalm 75; Mark 10:32-45

    HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED to you?  There's a person you admire, a family member, a teacher, a political figure, anybody.  You know his character, his opinions, the principles he bases his actions on.  You're sure you know what to expect from him as he lives his life.  But one day, you think you hear him say something that doesn't fit with what you know about him.  He'll say something is not a certain way when you'd expect him to say it is.  Well, maybe you misheard.  Forget about it.

    But then he says something else along the same lines.  What?  Well, maybe he just misspoke.  And you let it go.  But then he says or does it again, and it wasn't a slip.  You admire him, you respect him-- gosh darn it, you know him!  So automatically your mind works to make this new, contradictory information harmonize with your image of him.  And you go on like that, until the time comes when you have to face facts: These new, disturbing things really reflect who your hero is, and the image you had of him or her up to now is false, or at least inadequate.  Something has to give: Your allegiance to that person-- or the deficient idea about him you previously held.

    Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance.  That's when two things you think you know are out of tune with one another, but you do your best to make them harmonize because you don't want to give up what you basically believe on the matter.  We've all experienced it at some time or the other.  In our passage from Mark chapter 10, this lack of harmony engulfs the disciples, the Twelve, and especially the brothers James and John.  They think they know all about Jesus and His role and mission on this earth and they want to keep on relating to Him according to that knowledge.  But Jesus knows they don't have the whole story about Who He is and what He came to do.  The entire gospel according to St. Mark records how Jesus worked to make them-- and us-- give up our inadequate image of Him and embrace the real Jesus and His real kingdom, so we can turn to Him and be saved.

    Humanly-speaking, we can't blame the disciples for their deficient ideas.  After all, hear what it says in Mark 1:14-15:

    After John was put on prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  "The time has come," he said.  "The kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe the good news."

Jesus' basic message was about the kingdom of God: the blessed time when the righteous would be rewarded and the wicked punished and the Lord God Himself would reign in the person of His promised Messiah.  By His proclamation Jesus made it clear that He was the One who was bringing the kingdom in.
    And hear what the Scriptures say in the seventh chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel:

        As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. . . . 

        In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

    Here we see the glorious Son of Man, and by that title the promised Messiah would be known.  The eternal kingdom, that is, the kingdom of God, would be given to Him to rule over, and it would never be destroyed. 

    So what do we hear Jesus of Nazareth calling Himself?  In Mark 2:10 He says: "That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . " And in Mark 2:28: "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."  And so on through the Gospel of Mark, not to mention many other times Jesus takes that title to Himself in Matthew, Luke, and John.  So Jesus without apology steps into the role of the Son of Man Daniel spoke about, and His miracles and teaching proved He deserved it.  This Jesus was the One who would reign as King over the indestructible divine kingdom, and His reign would have no end.

    That's how the disciples, including the Twelve, saw Him.  And they were right to see the Lord Jesus that way, as far as their perception went.  But their ideas didn't include what had to happen before the Son of Man could be awarded "all authority, glory, and sovereign power."  And when Jesus tried to teach His followers the whole truth, they didn't want to hear it, in a very real way they couldn't hear it, and they went on acting as if He'd never said anything on the subject at all.

    Though they couldn't ignore Him on it altogether. At the beginning of our target passage in Mark, we read that "they were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid."  From the ordinary point of view, they were just heading for Jerusalem as they would every year to celebrate the Passover.  But even the half-committed crowds that went along with Jesus just to see what miracles He'd perform next knew that Jerusalem wasn't a safe place for the Rabbi to be.  And His behavior was so odd!  He wasn't strolling along with them, singing the customary Psalms and anticipating a glorious time in the holy city.  No, as another translation puts it, He was "forging ahead," His head down like a charging bull, a Man on a mission determined to get that mission done.  What could it all mean?

    The disciples were astonished, the ordinary disciples and the Twelve as well.  From their point of view, Jerusalem was the last place Jesus should go at the moment, Passover or no Passover.  How did this seemingly self-destructive behavior fit, how could it fit with His identity as God's elect King and Ruler of the heavenly kingdom?

    And then Jesus turns up the dissonance.  He takes the twelve apostles aside and says,

     "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

The Son of Man?  Betrayed, flogged, and killed?  Preposterous! Impossible!  Jesus can't possibly mean it.  Never mind that this is the third time Mark records Jesus making this prediction.  It just didn't fit.  And as for His statement that three days later he will rise, what could that possibly mean?  As we see from what happens on Resurrection Day, that didn't register with the apostles at all.

    No, the disciples' idea of the Son of Man had nothing to do with disgrace, suffering, and death, it was all about ruling and glory.  Right after this, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approach Jesus.  How have they explained their Master's strange behavior to themselves?

     Well, maybe He was going up to Jerusalem to declare Himself Messiah and King.  Yes, that would be it.  By the word of His mouth, with mighty signs and wonders, Jesus would overwhelm the Romans and the Jewish religious establishment.  He would take His stand in the Temple, the Holy Spirit would come down in power, and everyone would fall at His feet and crown Him Lord of all.  Definitely something to be astonished at, but it would fit.

    So since the kingdom must be coming in its fullness very, very soon, the brothers ask Him to grant them the seats at His right hand and His left when He sits enthroned in His glory.  As good Jews they're visualizing the thrones set in place in Daniel's vision.  It wouldn't be mere pomp and ceremony.  What they had in mind was the ruling power and authority and might the Son of Man would wield. James and John want to share it when King Jesus sits triumphant in His everlasting kingdom.  Co-prime ministers of Christ the King, that's what they want to be.  The kingdom, the power, and the glory may belong to our Father in heaven, but they're looking forward to a time in the very near future when a good chunk of it is delegated to them.  Talk of death, suffering, and disgrace is out of tune here; let's keep hold of eternal power and splendor.

    They don't know what they're asking, Jesus replies.  "Can you drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?" 

    Oh, yes, certainly they can!

    Did our Lord look at those two with loving pity when they gave that eager reply?  What did they think He meant?  Yes, there was a cup of the king: It was the cup of joy, the cup of salvation, the cup of overflowing provision.  And though the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about the preparations a king-elect would undergo before he was crowned, we do know from Exodus 29 that before a high priest was consecrated, he was to be thoroughly washed-- baptised, really-- to purify himself for his office.  And certainly the prophets say that the Messiah was to be the great High Priest as well as Israel's everlasting King. Likely there other rites before a coronation, like fasting and prayer and seeking the face of the Lord.  Yes, certainly, James and John could handle that!

    But James and John don't know that Jesus will have to drink the cup of God's wrath, as we read about in Psalm 75.  He will drink it down to the dregs, so that the wicked of this earth, including you and me, might be transformed through Him into children of God.  That cup of wrath was drunk by Christ alone, but the sons of Zebedee and all of us who belong to Jesus must be prepared to suffer for the sake of His name, before we can expect to reign with Him in glory.

    And James and John don't understand that the baptism Jesus will undergo will be the baptism of death.  He will be plunged into it fully for our sake on the cross, and after three days emerge living and glorious as the risen Son of Man.  Only Jesus could die that death for our sins, but all of us who bear His name must put to death our selfishness, our pride, our wills, even our physical lives; all we think we know and all we think we are.  All must be submerged and drowned to death in the blood of His cross.  Only then can we rise with Him to eternal life and kingdom glory.

    Yes, James and John will certainly share in Jesus' baptism and cup, and so will you and I who are baptised in His name.  But as to rewards and places of authority, the humble Son of Man declares that they are the Father's alone to give.  As we read in Psalm 75,

    No one from the east or the west
            or from the desert can exalt a man.
    But it is God who judges:
            He brings one down, he exalts another.

    The sons of Zebedee were looking to the main chance and working for their own advantage.  But in their indignation the other ten disciples were just as far off the mark, and in their situation we'd probably do the same.  Why shouldn't one of them get the best place?  Why not you, why not me?  But Jesus frankly, even ruthlessly destroys their false idea about the workings of the kingdom of God, both now and in the world to come.  He says,

        "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."    

This is the truth about the kind of king Christ is and the kind of kingdom He came to establish.  He's not an earthly ruler and His rulership doesn't follow earthly rules.  "Long live the king!" is the traditional cry.  But Jesus came to be put to death.  Many in the Church today can accept the idea that Jesus came to be a model  of service to our fellow man.  But this idea that the wrath of God was upon us all, and only the shed blood of the sinless Son of Man can turn it away, that doesn't fit.  They explain it away by saying the cross was only symbolic, or just a supreme example of love.  But Christ our King was enthroned upon that cross, and without it there would be no kingdom for Him and none for you and me.  We must accept our need for His death, for only then can we truly be His disciples. 

    It's not for us on this earth to be coveting glory for ourselves in God's kingdom to come.  Rather, let us receive the aid of the Holy Spirit as we humbly walk in the way of the cross.  Jesus has reconciled us to God through His suffering so we who belong to His kingdom can follow Him in humility, patience, service, mutual submission, and love.  It is our glory here on earth to suffer for the name of Christ: sometimes directly in times of persecution; sometimes simply by praising and trusting Him in the ordinary troubles and pains of this life.  There will be transcendent glory to come, but for now, He calls us to drink His cup and undergo His baptism.

    Brothers and sisters, what will you do?  Will you try to minimize your need for the cross?  Will you attempt to explain away Christ's command to be the slave of all, so you can keep your deficient idea of Who He is and what He came to do?  Or will you accept that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give up His life as a ransom for many?  Worship Him as He is, your broken and bleeding Savior.  Follow daily in the path of His sacrifice, serving others for His sake.  And know that by His faithfulness and His atoning death, you will stand before Him in His kingdom, praising the Father in the glory of His resurrection.  Amen.

"But They Laughed at Him"

Texts:    1 Corinthians 1:18-25; Mark 5:21-43

        PEOPLE LAUGH AT GOD THESE days. How absurd that anyone should believe in a Deity we've probably "just made up in our own heads."  We reply that our God could be seen and heard and felt when He lived on earth as the Man Jesus Christ, but the unbelieving world thinks that's a terrific joke.  How could a man be God in human flesh?!  How could one Man's death deal with the problem of our sins?!  Most hilarious of all, where do we Christians get off saying that people have any sin problem in the first place?  People laugh at Jesus, and they laugh at us.

    Maybe if we could go back in time and walk with Jesus in Roman-occupied Israel, we'd find that nobody laughed at God like that.  Everyone would respect Jesus and take Him seriously.  After all, Jesus was the Messiah, the Holy One of God.  And as His disciples, people would respect us take us seriously, too.  No one would dare to laugh, or say that Jesus-- or we ourselves-- was a fool.

    But we know that's not true.   We know it from our Scripture readings this morning.  Just as now, people in the 1st century had no trouble laughing at Jesus and laughing at Christians.  Why?  Because from this fallen world's point of view, Jesus seemed to go about His work in a very foolish way.  He didn't do things the way that was prescribed or expected.  Not even the religious people approved of what He did and why He did it.  Jesus deliberately went around turning things upside down.

    Now, not always.  In our reading from St. Mark's gospel, we see Jesus surrounded by a large crowd.  That's the way it was supposed to be--the famous rabbi, with the crowds hanging onto His every word.  And suddenly through the throng comes the respected Jairus, a ruler of the local synagogue, beseeching Jesus' help.  The man's little daughter is dying-- please, Rabbi, come and heal her.  Ah, yes, the high and respected ones look up to Jesus.  That's right.  And Jesus goes with the man to heal his daughter.  That's the way it's supposed to be, too.  And the pressing crowds enthusiastically come along.

    But what's this?  Suddenly Jesus stops dead, looks around, and asks, "Who touched my clothes?"  Even His disciples think this is an odd thing for Him to say.  Good grief, Lord, the people are all crowding against You!  Why ask who in particular touched Your clothes?  Jesus' modern detractors would say this proves He wasn't really God, because God knows everything, so Jesus should have known who had touched Him. They fail to comprehend what God gave up to become a Man, and so they laugh.

    But that day in the crowd by the Sea of Galilee, nobody was laughing.  They waited, and out of the crowd crept a woman who fell at Jesus' feet.  You can imagine the whispers that would have flown from ear to ear.  "Heavens!  Isn't that Hannah bat Itzak?  Doesn't she have some sort of bleeding trouble?"  "How dare she appear in public?"  "How dare she touch the Rabbi, even His clothes!"  Then, "Blood!  Blood!  Unclean blood!"  Nobody's pressing around Jesus anymore.  They've all drawn themselves and their garments back, lest they be rendered ceremonially unclean, just like this afflicted woman.

    And under the Old Covenant law they were right.  Back then our worthiness to approach God in worship depended upon our following certain rules of ritual cleanliness.  Why isn't Jesus following the Law and avoiding this woman?  Doesn't He know her history?  And even if He didn't before, He does now, because she tells Him of her twelve years of bleeding and suffering and isolation.  Does He draw back in horror?  No!  Jesus looks on her with compassion and says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."  Sorry, Jesus, it doesn't make sense!

    Besides, Jesus, what about poor Jairus and his dying child?  Even while Jesus was still talking to the woman, men from the synagogue ruler's house came and reported that his daughter was dead.  No call for Jesus to come now.  Maybe if He'd ignored that unclean creature He would have been on time, but now, forget it.

    But Jesus won't forget it.  He tells the grieving father, "Don't be afraid; just believe."  What an odd thing to say!  But Jairus doesn't laugh.  He goes with Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John, back to his home where his daughter lies dead.  Already at the door the hired mourners are at work, weeping and wailing in honor of the dead child.  Jesus, really, isn't it too late?

    But our Lord says, "Why all this commotion and wailing?  The child is not dead but asleep."

    But they laughed at Him.  From every reasonable point of view, they had a right to laugh at Him.  You didn't need to be a professional mourner in that day to know what a dead body looked like.  The girl was dead.  Enough with the sick jokes, Rabbi.  You make us laugh.

    But Jesus isn't working from human reason.  He's working from the wisdom of God.  He isn't bound by the limitations of human strength, He's filled with the strength of God.  Jesus isn't controlled by the powers of death, He Himself is the everlasting Life of God.  He can confound all human expectations.  Taking the child by the hand, He commands, "Talitha, koum!" or, in English, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!"  And this twelve-year-old child gets up, walks around fully alive, and ready for something to eat.

    What?  Who is this who by the speaking of His word can restore life in what was dead?

    It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man.  He is the Savior of Israel and hope of the nations, great David's greater Son.  He came in fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies, but even those who claimed to be waiting for Him didn't recognize Him when He came and laughed at Him as a fool.

    In Jesus' day, good religious Jews were expecting God to act to save them, through a human Messiah.  But God chose to come to earth Himself, as the Man Jesus Christ, fully human and fully God.   Can our human minds get around how this can be?  No, but the mind of God can and did make it happen.  And so Jesus lived and served among us, and demonstrated His full humanity by accepting our limitations.  He was willing to be like us, getting hungry, thirsty, and tired.  He accepted that at times His Father would hide some things from Him, such as the identity of the woman who deliberately touched Him in the crowd.  But He was also eternal God, with power over life and death, whose very clothes carried the power to heal those who reached out in faith.

    But then Jesus was hung on a cross and killed.  Now where was the glorious divine kingdom He was supposed to bring?  The Romans mocked and the Jewish authorities scoffed.  They laughed at Him as He hung there.  Where were all His godlike pretensions now?

    But we know what happened on the third day.  God the Father vindicated His Son by raising Him from the dead.  God had the last laugh.  What a reversal!  See all the wisdom and disdain of the world turned upside down!

    But amazing as the resurrection is, as much as it upsets everything we assume about the way things are supposed to be, the cross of Christ challenges our worldly assumptions even more.  For as St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, to those who are perishing-- that is, to all who do not believe in Jesus Christ-- the message of the cross is foolishness.  For what was a Roman cross but a mark of defeat, death, and shame?  To be hung on a cross meant disgrace and weakness, the end of everything you stood for and the end of you.  But God in Christ took that shameful instrument and made it the only sign of the world's hope, glory, and life.  The only sign, I say, because God in His wisdom and power has ordained that only through the cross of Christ can anyone anywhere gain access to Him and enjoy life everlasting.

    The unbelieving world laughs at this.  It laughed in Paul's day and it laughs in ours.  Everybody knows you're in charge of your own salvation, say those who are perishing.   First century Greeks insisted that intellectual enlightenment was the way to union with God.  The Jews of that day were waiting for Jesus to do a miraculous sign that would come up to their standards.  Make all the Romans suddenly drop dead in the streets, perhaps.  And in our time, it's common wisdom that if there is a God you please Him by obeying the rules and making sure your good deeds outweigh your bad!  You're laughed at if you say otherwise.

    But God our Father steadfastly points all mankind to Christ and Him crucified.  All the derision, all the disdain of the world cannot change the eternal fact that it's only through the broken body and blood of Christ that anyone at all can be saved.  Just as Jesus took the corpse of Jairus' daughter by the hand and called her spirit back into her, so the Holy Spirit of Christ entered into us while we were dead in trespasses and sins.  He raised us up in God's strength and enlightens our minds with God's wisdom.

    And so, brothers and sisters, the world may laugh at Jesus and it may laugh at you, but let the cross of Christ be your unchanging message and your eternal hope.  On this good news we take our stand unshaken, even when so much that is good is being torn down and denigrated, even when laughter at the crucified Christ comes from the heart of the church.

    But what if those who laugh and scorn are those we love?  What if our friends and family call us fools and worse for trusting a dead and risen God?  We do them no favors by compromising God's truth to make them feel better about their worldly wisdom.  Stand firm in Christ; love them, pray for them, be always ready to give a reason for the divine hope that is in you.  Remember, there was a time when you, too, couldn't believe that Christ's death was enough to save you, maybe a time when you didn't think you needed to be saved.  The Holy Spirit made you wise with the wisdom of God; He can raise and enlighten and enliven those you care for, too.

    Jesus Christ came to earth as God in human flesh, to die and rise again that we might be raised by the power of God.  The Supper here spread confirms this reality to and in us.  Come to our Lord's Table and eat and drink unto eternal life.  And laugh, brothers and sisters, laugh, no longer in derision, but in holy, exalted, and overflowing joy.  Amen.

One Mission, One Love, One Glory

Texts:    Isaiah 6:1-8; John 16:12-25; 17:20-26

        DOES IT REALLY MATTER what sort of Being we believe God is?  Our Christian confessions teach us to worship one God in three Persons, eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But what does that have to do with daily life? With all the confusion, turmoil, and economic upheaval of our times, with all the cares and responsibilities we have on our shoulders, why not simply think of God as God and not worry about theology?  Shouldn't we just love our neighbor and try to make ourselves worthy of spending eternity in God's presence, whatever we conceive God to be?  After all, doesn't getting too picky about doctrine just make trouble with other people and add more stress we can't afford?

    . . . In case you might be wondering if I think we should give in to this way of thinking, let me make it very clear that I do not.  The fact that God is a Trinity is crucial for our life in this world and our hope for the next.  We Christian believers all must reject any other way of thinking about God first of all because He Himself has revealed Himself to be one God in three Persons.  And the Scriptures make it clear that it's only because the one, true, creator God of the universe is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it's only due to the wonderful reality of who and what He actually is, that He is able to redeem, renew, comfort, and guide us as we travel through this painful and perilous world.

    Why do people so often say it doesn't matter how we imagine God?  It's because we have a mistaken and distorted imagination of ourselves.  We're inclined to consider ourselves pretty good people at heart, and all we need from our deity is a little encouragement and reward to make us even better.  The job description for a god like that isn't very strict.  Any old god will do, providing he, she, or it is nice enough.

    It's not just unbelievers who're prone to think this way.  That's what we were born believing about ourselves and God, too.  But then the genuine Triune God bursts in on our darkness and we discover a whole lot of things about our sinfulness and His holiness that shock and disturb us terribly.  We learn that only a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can rescue us from the mess we're in and transform us into the glorious human creatures He intended us to be.

    Remember what happened to Isaiah.  Compared to most people of his time, he was a righteous man.  He was God's prophet.  But that day in the temple the Triune God chose to open Isaiah's eyes to what divine holiness really is.  He revealed Himself to Isaiah-- as the Scripture says, "I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple."  Isaiah saw the seraphim and heard them cry that the Lord is not merely "Holy!" but "Holy, holy, holy!"  The doorposts and thresholds shook with the power of their voices and the whole temple was filled with the smoke, the incense of God's glorious presence.

    What a wonder, to be granted a vision of the living God!  But at the same time the Lord God revealed Isaiah to himself-- and he was devastated.  He, who seemed to be so righteous and good, was convicted of his utter wretchedness and sin. "Woe to me," he cried.  "For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!"

    What is Isaiah to do?  The very holiness of God condemns him!  "Unclean lips"--Bad language-- speaking slightingly of his neighbor-- grumbling about the gifts God has given-- that doesn't seem very bad, does it?  But Isaiah understands that his unclean lips are the fruit of an unclean heart, and under the vision of the threefold holiness of God he stands utterly and justly condemned.

    But one of the seraphim touches Isaiah's lips with a live coal from the altar of sacrifice.  He declares, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."  How?  Could a man have been saved by a piece of glowing charcoal from the high altar of the temple in Jerusalem?  No, but the fire represents the atoning sacrifices offered on the altar and those animal sacrifices looked forward to the final and totally sufficient sacrifice that 700 years later was to be offered by the Son of God Himself on the altar of the cross.  Isaiah is redeemed in advance by the second person of the Trinity, and called to take God's message to his world.

    What is the mission the Triune God gives Isaiah?  Initially his job will be to show to the people their sin in light of God's holiness.  But when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will send Isaiah with the good news of the love of the Father to be shown to Israel and all the world.  That love will come in the person of a Son, a Servant who is a Man, but who can claim all the rights and prerogatives of God.  The Lord's ultimate goal is to cleanse His chosen ones from their sin, that we might live with Him and see His glory.

    By the power of the Holy Spirit, we have faith that this promised Messiah was the Man Jesus of Nazareth.  Again, those who do not believe, those who underestimate the terror of their sins, think that Jesus was simply a good man who came along to urge us to try a little harder.  And that doctrines like the Trinity were just made up by theologians to confuse laypeople.  Our readings from St. John show us how false this is.

    What does Jesus say of Himself?  In chapter 17 our Lord is concluding the great prayer He prayed for all His disciples in the Upper Room, before He was arrested and crucified.  In verses 20-26 He is interceding not only for the eleven apostles and the other disciples who had followed Him up to then, but also for those who would believe in Him thereafter.  That's us!  Jesus is praying that we-- us-- might participate fully in the life of the Godhead, be incorporated, wrapped in, enfolded into the glorious reality of who God is, now and forever.   Think on this, next time life hardly seems worth it, when this world seems meaningless and even those you love don't seem to care.  Jesus declares that He was sent by God the Father to bring you into total union with Himself! 

    But how can we, mere fleshly human beings doomed to die, think of being one with the everlasting God unless one who is both God and Man comes to bring the divine and the human together?  And how can Jesus claim to be in the Father and the Father in Him if He Himself is just a good man and not Himself God?  It would be impossible!  God in His holiness is so far above the best of us, we could never approach Him in our own power without being totally destroyed.

    But Jesus Christ the Son of Mary declares that He has this union with the everlasting Father God.  He claims that in Him all who believe the good news about Him are able to enter the unity that is the One and enjoy the community that is the Three.   He prays that even now among ourselves, in our everyday lives as members of His church, we will begin to taste the delights of the blissful fellowship that is Almighty God! 

    He prays that as we are brought to complete unity with Him and with one another, we will be loved by God the Father even as He loves the Son, and the world, the unbelieving, God-rejecting world-- will be forced to sit up and take notice. 

    And again in verse 24, Jesus prays that we would share His divine glory, the glory given to the Son in the Father's love before the creation of the world.

    Brothers and sisters, if Jesus is not God; if God isn't Trinity, this prayer is meaningless.  It would even be blasphemy.  Jesus would have no claim on the Father and no divine glory to reveal.  In Isaiah 42:8 the Sovereign Lord says, "I will not give my glory to another, or my praise to idols."  But Jesus has the right to God's glory, for He is one with the Father.  He didn't just say this, He proved it by rising from the dead.

    And what of God the Holy Spirit?  In our passage from John 16, Jesus declares that the Spirit of truth will take what belongs to Himself-- His truth, His mercy, His power to save, His resurrection life-- all the benefits we have in Jesus-- He the Spirit will bring this to us and so bring glory to Christ, glory that is His by the will of the Father. 

    Jesus' will is that we should see His divine glory, and love and worship Him all the more as we are drawn by the Spirit closer into the heart of our Father God.  But didn't Isaiah see God's glory, and didn't it nearly destroy him in misery and fear?  What has changed?

    What has changed is that as He prays Jesus the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, is preparing to go to the cross.  There He would offer Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice to God for the sins of the world.  Because He is Man, He could die for us.  Because He is God, He could perfectly satisfy the holiness of the Father.  Because the Holy Spirit is God, He can bring all the good of Christ's atoning death to you, to save you and cleanse you from all that makes you unclean.  You don't have to struggle for God's favor-- God the Son has gained it for you!  You don't have to worry that God would never accept you-- Jesus has made you one with Him and therefore one with the Father.  God the Holy Spirit comes to remind you of these things.  He is the Spirit of Christ within you, keeping you in God's love and care even when you're so upset you can't even pray for fear.  The Spirit makes Christ known to us, even as Christ reveals to us the Father, that the love the Father has for Him might be in us and Christ Himself might fill us in every part of our being.

    Does it matter whether we believe that God is Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  It matters; yes, it matters more than anything else in all of life ever can.  Reject this truth about God, and we worship nothing but an idol of our own making; we will be excluded from His presence.  Accept the Triune God, and know unity with Him who has no beginning and no end. God the Father sent His Son into the world to show His love to His chosen children, that we might see His glory.  Receive His gracious love by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing us truth in the word of the apostles.  God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, holy and blessed Trinity.  He dwells forever in joyful, glorious unity, and He invites you together with all believers to enter in and find your salvation, delight, and eternal glory in Him.

True Discipleship, True Satisfaction, True Life

 Texts:    I Corinthians 10:1-17; Mark 8:27-37

    WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF you were a young man of 34, with a beautiful wife and two young children, you had your whole life ahead of you, and the authorities said you must hang?  And not because of any crime you'd committed, but because you were a practicing Christian and pastor who helped others live their lives as practicing Christians? If the authorities told you you could save your life if you denied Jesus Christ, would you do it?  What if they told you you didn't even have to revile Jesus, you could say Jesus was a great prophet but not the eternal Son of God who shed His blood on the cross for sinners, and that'd save your life.   Would you do it?  For the sake of your wife and children, would you compromise the truth about Jesus your Lord?   For the sake of your own life, would you be ashamed of Him and His word and deny that He is your Saviour and the only Saviour of the world?

    Or would you take up your cross and follow Him?

    This is the decision faced by Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran, but for him, it is a decision he has made.   He has decided in the face of all earthly pains and earthly joys to follow Jesus his Lord and Saviour, even if it means the death of his flesh in this world.

    Our Scripture texts for this morning ask us, can we, will we, make the same decision?  Brothers and sisters, it's useless for us to say that we aren't like Pastor Youcef, that we don't live under a cruel Muslim regime where converting to Christianity is a capital crime.  Even if we lived under the most Church-friendly government possible, we'd still have to decide whether to take up our crosses.  Because denying ourselves isn't something that starts with facing death for the sake of Jesus Christ and the gospel; no, it's something we have to do every day.

    In 1 Corinthians 10 we read how our spiritual forefathers came out of Egypt.  They were all followers of God through Moses.  They all shared in the blessing of God's people.  They ate the manna the Lord gave from heaven.  They drank the water that sprang miraculously from the rock in the wilderness.  But their hearts were committed to the Lord and His will.  They weren't willing to trust the Lord and His servant Moses to lead them into the Promised Land.  In the desert, not certain where they were going, the children of Israel were called to deny themselves and follow God through hardship to true satisfaction and true life.  But as St. Paul reminds us, most of them chose to deny God instead.

    He summarizes how this played out: They committed idolatry, worshipping the Golden Calf, claiming it was a statue of the Lord Yahweh who'd brought them out of Egypt.  They committed sexual immorality.  They doubted God, even the Lord Christ, and put Him to the test as if God could somehow come up lacking.  They grumbled and griped about the food and the conditions, even though the Lord never let them go hungry, never let their shoes or clothes wear out, even though He worked amazing miracles in their sight and over and over assured them that He could always to be trusted.

    "Idolatry" truly describes all these sins, for what is idolatry?  It's worshipping anything or anybody more than the triune God who made heaven and earth.  Idolatry is selfishness, especially the selfishness that goes against what we know God wants for us.  It's gaining the whole world though it should cost us our souls.  Idolatry puts loyalty to ourselves, our wants, even to our fears ahead of faith in the God who made us.  We don't have to be following a pillar of cloud around in a barren wilderness to be tempted to idolatry.  It happens every time the will of the Lord and our will comes into conflict.  And tragically, like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we give into the temptation.  We know the Lord wants us to do good to another and we can do good to that other person, but we choose not to because it's inconvenient.   We let our anger and annoyance boil over because it's so satisfying to "express ourselves," instead of showing forgiveness as the Lord Jesus has forgiven us.  Idolatry is at the heart of the current debate over government-funded contraception. Idolatry claims us when we eat or drink more than we should, when we watch too much TV or surf the Internet too long though we truly have better things to do.  It's idolatry when we snipe at and gossip about one another because it's so satisfying to feel superior to those we're complaining about.  And I know exactly how it is because I am guilty of many of these things myself.

    Like St. Paul, I don't remind you of these things to make you feel down or discouraged.  Rather, like him I speak to you as sensible people who have the mind of Christ.  The first thing we need to accept is that we will be tempted to deny our Lord for the sake of ourselves and our own satisfaction.  But as we read in verse 13, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man."  When you are tempted, there's no need to panic and say, "Oh, no one has ever faced this issue before, God cannot help me overcome it."  And there's no excuse to say, "This temptation is entirely new; God hasn't come up with a plan for this one."  No, God is faithful and God is strong.  He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.  He will provide you a way of escape, so you will be able to endure the temptation and not give in.

    In our Gospel reading from St. Mark It's significant that our Lord warns His disciples and the crowds about taking up their crosses and following Him shortly after Peter has confessed that Jesus is indeed the Christ.  If He were not the Christ, this command would be meaningless.  He'd have no right to ask us to override our own wills and even give up our lives for Him.  Peter would have been justified in trying to deter Him from going to Jerusalem and certain death.  If Jesus were not the promised Messiah and King, He could offer us no help and no reward when we take up our crosses daily for Him.  But Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  His blood did take away the sins of the world.  He is truly the One who has life in Himself, who can give it to all who believe in Him.  He is worthy that we should override our wants and desires to obey and give honor to Him and Him alone.

    Last night as I was putting the final touches on this sermon, I read online that Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani had indeed been executed, yesterday afternoon.  The report was not yet confirmed, but if it is true, our sadness for our brother is mixed with joy.  He has lost his life for Jesus' sake and the sake of the gospel, and therefore he has saved it.  You and I probably will not be called upon to shed our blood for our Lord.  Nevertheless, taking up our crosses begins and continues every day as we choose to love Him and our neighbor more than we love ourselves.  This would be too much for us, but it is not too much for Him.  Jesus Christ is He who took up the great cross for you, and He is with you always to help you carry your cross for His sake and the sake of the gospel.  In our time of decision He gives us everything we need to choose Him over ourselves.  We have the word of Christ to read and remember and apply to our own situations.  We have the Holy Spirit to strengthen us when we are weak and failing.  We have His sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, where we can see and feel and taste the truth of His love for us, where He renews in us the sacred reality of His death that wiped away our sins and His resurrection that gives us life forever more.

    Since this is so, come to the Table Jesus spreads for you.  Trust Him and know that even as you can taste and swallow the bread and the wine, just as surely His broken body and shed blood has purchased the forgiveness we need every day.  Come and take part in Jesus Christ and all His blessings, won for you on the cross.  Here with joy submit yourself to Him as His true disciple, and receive a foretaste of the true satisfaction and life that awaits you when the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.  In thankfulness and joy, decide for Him, for in grace and love Jesus Christ denied Himself and decided for you.  Amen.

Getting on with His Job

 Texts:    Isaiah 50:4-11; Mark 1:9-15

    ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE OF this year's Super Bowl ads was the one where the young man thinks his parents are giving him a shiny yellow convertible Camaro as a graduation present, and responds accordingly.  We viewers understand right away that the real present is a mini-refrigerator for the cheapo apartment they figure he'll be getting, but he only has eyes for the fancy, expensive car.  One reason that ad works is because that's how a lot of young people feel about getting their college degrees: "I've worked hard these past four years, my parents are proud of me, I deserve a great job, a great car, a great life.  I'm great, I've arrived, it's all about me, me, me!  Yayyyy!!!"

    . . . Aren't you glad that Jesus the Son of God wasn't like that?  When Jesus of Nazareth was baptised by John in the River Jordan, He received the most wonderful gifts from His eternal Father.  As He was coming up out of the river, He saw the heavens being opened, and the Holy Spirit descending on Him in appearance like a dove.  For Jesus and those who had eyes to see, this was a sign that He indeed was the Anointed One, the Messiah.  This visible gift of the Spirit confirmed that all the virtues and powers that had always been His as the Son of God would also be His as the Son of Man.  The powers that belonged to His exalted office were His to use. 

    And with the anointing of the Spirit Jesus received His Father's approval: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."

    We sinners cannot understand how beyond price it would be, to have God the Father's complete and unreserved approval. We're too focussed on the material things of this world.  And we could never in ourselves deserve God's approbation. Our sins prevent us from being pleasing to God.  Only Jesus Christ could receive such an overwhelming gift; being God's beloved Son is His right and His alone.

    If Jesus had been an ordinary human being like you and me, if as an ordinary human being He'd been able to appreciate the value of the gifts He was given at His baptism, it wouldn't be surprising if He'd react like the young man in the commercial.  "Wow!  I'm really special!  My Father loves me, He's given me these great gifts, and I deserve every bit of it!  Hey, everybody,  I'm the Messiah, worship me now!"

    But Jesus didn't react like that.  Jesus had a job to do on this earth, and it's God the Father's great gift and blessing to us that His beloved Son kept His eye on the job, He knew what He had to do, and He carried it out.

    That said, we might expect that Jesus would get straight to work preaching and healing, right after His baptism.  Maybe address the crowd of John's disciples and those who'd come to be baptised, right there on the banks of the river Jordan.  But even though He is God's beloved Son in whom there is no fault, in whom the Father is well pleased, He still has preparation to undergo.  St. Mark tells us that immediately after this the Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness, compelled Him to go there, to be tempted by Satan.

    Did you get that?  It wasn't as if Jesus was spending time in fasting and prayer, and the Devil showed up unexpectedly hoping to trip Him up in a weak moment.  No, God the Holy Spirit deliberately sent God the Son into a barren, isolated place  to encounter the accuser of man, so He might be fully ready to do His saving work, to the glory of God the Father.  The word the English versions translate as "being tempted" has several layers of meaning.  Yes, it does mean "to entice someone to sin."  But it also can mean "to make a trial of, to put to the test, to discover what kind of person someone is."  It's one of the greatest jokes of the cosmos that Satan thinks he's so big and powerful and in control, and here God the Holy Spirit was using him-- simply using him-- to prove that Jesus Christ was pure gold all the way through, and binding Him even closer to His Father in heaven. 

    In our passage from Isaiah the anointed Servant of the Lord speaks of His motivation, dedication, and mission.  This was a prophecy of the Christ who was to come.  The Servant says in verses 8,

        Who will contend with me?
                    Let us stand up together.
        Who is my adversary?
                    Let him come near to me.

    Satan the accuser came near to our Lord Jesus in the wilderness, and went away defeated, for

        Behold, the Lord God helps me;
                    who will declare me guilty?

    No one, because Jesus the Servant of God put Himself wholly into the hands of His Father to vindicate and sustain Him.  In the wilderness Satan hoped to break and corrupt the Son of Man, but Jesus came out stronger, more focussed, and with greater integrity than before.

    So now, as Mark tells us, after John the Baptist was arrested--when the herald and forerunner was off the stage-- "Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'"

    This was Jesus' work, to proclaim and bring in the rulership of God on this fallen earth.  Isaiah foretold how He went about it.  His word of hope sustained the weary.  He faithfully declared all His Father gave Him to say, and He didn't turn back or rebel against saying it.  Jesus did what would be impossible for us-- He revealed that He was the center, the focus, the embodiment of the kingdom of God, but at the same time, He didn't preach Himself for Himself.  He didn't say and do things for His own comfort or to boost His self-esteem or His position in the world.  Everything He did in His ministry was done in obedience to God the Father, so sinners like you and me could be reconciled to God through Him and God glorified in heaven and on earth.

    Jesus did not turn backward from what He came to do, even when it took Him to the cross.  No, He

    gave [His] back to those who strike,
                and [His] cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
    [He] hid not [His] face
        from disgrace and spitting.

And because Jesus was pleasing to God, because He got on with the holy task the Father sent Him to do, the cross did not end for Him in disgrace and shame, but in vindication and glory.

    And because Jesus was faithful in word and deed to the job He was given to do, we, too, can share His vindication and glory.  The Scripture is clear: Jesus did what He did because He was the only one who could do it.  His fast, His temptation, His ministry, His cross, His resurrection-- all this He was willing to do, He did it all for you, to reconcile you to the Father and restore you to His love.

    This is something we can hold onto.  It's inevitable:  We will have days, weeks, months, when we don't understand what God is doing, when, as Isaiah says, we have no light and we walk in the darkness.  But there is confidence and hope for you who fear the Lord and obey the voice of Jesus, His Servant.  For His Spirit has given you an open ear to repent and believe the gospel of God's kingship.  To you is given the light of God and for you Jesus completed His mighty work of salvation.  Even in the darkness, even in the midst of uncertainty and temptation, the name of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is strong, and on Him we can rely.

    But there are those who will not accept what Jesus has already done.  They do not trust Him or accept the light He gives.  They claim to believe in Jesus, but it is an idol, a Christ made in their own image.  They claim to have light, but it is light they have kindled themselves, and such a torch will lead them astray.  Satan was only the first of those who preached the bad news of their own greatness, of grabbing the good things they feel they deserve, and those who follow him will suffer his punishment.

    But this is not what God our Father has in mind for you, not if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, who was and is God's beloved Son.  He was tried and proven in His confrontation with Satan in the wilderness, He faithfully proclaimed the good news of God's kingdom, and when the time was right, Jesus opened up the door to the kingdom of heaven by the wounds He suffered in His own body on the cross.  He did the job you and I could never do.  You can trust and rely on Him, even in times of darkness, even when temptation seems too much to bear.  God has given you the greatest gift of His love any ordinary human being can ever receive, and that is the gift of His Son.  Believe the good news:  In Christ Himself you have the kingdom, and that gift will never be taken away from you, and in Him your joy will never end.